Messages - MachThree

I read this on another site. I think they confirmed that this person did work on Lost for like 3 years as an intern, but wasn't involved in the show at the end.

Honestly, I couldn't get past this when I tried to read it:

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Enter Dharma -- which I'm not sure why John is having such a hard time grasping. Dharma, like the countless scores of people that were brought to the island before, were brought there by Jacob as part of his plan to kill the MIB. However, the MIB was aware of this plan and interferred by "corrupting" Ben. Making Ben believe he was doing the work of Jacob when in reality he was doing the work of the MIB. This carried over into all of Ben's "off-island" activities. He was the leader. He spoke for Jacob as far as they were concerned. So the "Others" killed Dharma and later were actively trying to kill Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley and all the candidates because that's what the MIB wanted. And what he couldn't do for himself.

The show never says until the end that Jacob is trying to kill MiB. I think he was content to simply protect the island - that's just my own interpretation but I think this person is skewing things with his own interpretation. Regardless....

MiB corrupting Ben? Not sure I follow this. From what I think we know, Ben was brought to the temple by Richard after Sayid shot him. I think its safe to say Ben went for a swim in the fountain. I don't think the fountain was linked in any way to MiB. So how else is it that MiB corrupted Ben? If Ben was corrupted, why wouldn't Jacob simply let it be known to The Others that someone else other than Ben was now in charge?

And when were the Others actively trying to kill the Candidates? Seriously? They had numerous opportunities to do so throughout the first several seasons (see the Ring of Fire episode or pretty much the entire time Jack, Sawyer and Kate were held captive - in fact, why then did the Others only have Michael bring them those three people? Why not all the candidates?).

As far as I can see, MiB needed all the candidates dead in order to leave. It wasn't so much him leaving the island that would ruin the rest of the world (i.e. he himself wouldn't be spreading evil per se), but the fact that with all of the candidates dead, there'd be no one to protect "the light" and eventually bad things would happen as a result. I guess I can't say that someone would have uncorked the light, since it seems only Desmond can do that and survive, but I think we got the idea from Across the Sea that the light needed to be protected from everyone, not just MiB.

As for having Desmond uncork the light, I guess MiB figured that this act would kill the candidates and then he'd be able to leave in the window between that time and when the island destroyed itself and took him with it.

This is a little frustrating for me. Alot of people have been clamoring for more answers, but the whole time at the Temple is exactly what those answers look like. If we NEVER got that time there, we would have been hearing, "And what about the Temple? We've been hearing about it for seasons and never see it?" "Where did Alpert take Ben as a kid and what happened to him?" "What happened to the rest of the Others that Alpert mentioned?"

Temple should never have been introduced to begin with. Yeah, I can say now that, having introduced the idea of the temple, if they hadn't shown the temple people would have complained, so they had to show it. Problem is, if they didn't have anything good to show us, they shouldn't have introduced the temple to begin with, and they could have spent the screen time on something better.

Writing the show is like a chess game. Yeah, trading my queen for the other guy's bishop was a crappy move. But the real crappy move I made was 5 moves ago when I moved my queen into a precarious position that I wasn't able to get out of. Same with what happened to the temple and many other mysteries, introducing them with no good payoff planned, but then feeling compelled to either not explain it (massive complaints) or showing us a crappy resolution (massive complaints).

Actually, its a matter of timing. The island was still breaking apart when they took off. Even if they could tell from the air that Jackob had fixed things, why would they turn around? No, they all wanted to go home. None of them knew about Hurley's ascension. And who would want to press their luck trying to land a 737 on that unpaved dirt strip that was too short a second time?

I still hope Damon and Carlton just do some sort of brain dump via an interview or fan conference to answer a lot of the questions that don't need story behind them to be answered.

My guess, Damon and Carlton took a red eye flight the day before the finale aired to some third world country where they don't have televisions and no one's heard of Lost. Given the reaction of some fans, which I'm sure they could anticipate, this would have been a necessary to ensure their own safety

Seriously, I know they've declared radio silence, but I hope it ends after a few months like it has before, instead of being permanent. To be honest though, any answers they give after the fact and outside of the show itself I would probably find unsatisfying (though I am perfectly fine with the show and how it ended and the mysteries it left unanswered etc.) In any case, that would be awesome if they did like a two hour movie "Lost: The Hurley Years" with Ben, Hurley and maybe some new castaways or other people Hurley brought to the island.

re: David - if I'm not mistaken, as soon as Locke tells Jack he has no son, we never see David again. Momma Juliett leaves him at the concert, then remembers with Sawyer. Aunty Claire goes and gives birth, has her moment with Kate and Charlie. And Pappa Jack is intrigued enough by Kate and what she's telling him that he leaves the concert without David. So there's either some pretty bad parenting going on here on the part of Jack and Juliette (and some bad babysitting on the part of Claire) or maybe everyone realized they didn't need to worry about David any more. And that's just from the fact they abandoned him at the concert. Never mind that they all headed off to the Church and went off into the great white beyond without him, leaving him to fend for himself in that "life" he was in.

Take that for what you will, but notice that Juliet leaves David at the concert with Claire. Juliette has her moment with Sawyer. Claire has her moment with Charlie and Kate. Jack starts remembering, lets Kate drive him off from the Church. Meanwhile 12 year old david, if he's even still around, I guess was left to fend for himself at the concert because all the adults left without him. So I sort of felt like Locke telling this to Jack had something to do with us never seeing David again.

If you were in charge of Emmy submissions for Lost season 6, which episodes / actors would you nominate?

I'd submit The End for Best Drama, Foxy for The End for Best Actor, and Ben for Dr. Linus for Best Supporting Actor. Didn't feel that any of the female performances this year were that strong (but the scripting didn't really call for it either) so I'd probably skip them or I'm just too lazy to think of the best one.

re: the tubes - was the writing actually "recent" - seems to me that after the purge of Dharma, whomever was in the ? station continued recording observations and putting them in the tubes for some time after the purge. Then, for whatever reason they left the station and never returned. I don't think there's anything more to it than that.

First of all, each of the "epiphany" scenes were all emotional wallops. I loved each and every one.

Jack's scenes with Desmond: "There's no going back, no do-overs. Believe me, I already tried that. What happened, happened" I'm paraphrasing, but I love that scene. Look at Jack's transformation just from the S5 finale which was all about undoing everything, to that moment. And "See ya in another life, brother" - I love that line and the way they used it here.

Kate to Desmond: "Christian Shepherd? Seriously?"

Flocke to Jack: "So its you? Aren't you the obvious choice?" Great nod to the audience.

Richard starting to age but wanting to live.

Jack and Christian - I *LOVED* that scene. I know some others didn't, but for me it was spot on.

As far as David, that is a HUGE part of Jack's story even though he "isn't real". Once again, it is part of the characters. David is a manifestation of Jack, and Juliet too. It's worth discussing. Some people will be confused by him but that's why we discuss it.

I think somehow Locke "dispelled" David when he told Jack he had no son. I want to go back and watch again to check for this, but I'm pretty sure David was not seen again after Locke said that. Claire was busy giving birth to Aaron, Juliet had her epiphany with Sawyer, and Kate managed to spark enough of Jack's memory that he seemed to forget all about David and drove off with her. In other words, if David was still there, he was abandoned at the concert and no one drove him home Ultimately, it is unfair to the audience to pull them in with mysteries and unanswered questions, act like you are bringing everything together and then decide 75% of the way through the story to change the presentation of things and stop answering these questions. Think back to early Lost, how did they reel us in? It was through polar bears, mysterious hatches and numbers, the Others, etc...

Agree with the above completely. I liked what they ended up doing, but it was also unfair. The mysteries were not just there in passing, they were presented as being important, and they basically bailed out on them. Sort of sucks.

Those specific examples were answered, but those are the types of things that created the huge fandom they had. The mysteries were responsible for all the forums, blogs and discussions and were what ultimately made us originally love the show. We fell in love with the characters too, but the linear story line of Lost and the mysteries that kept us watching were what separated this show from all the others. And in then end, for them just make the final season about the characters while not giving us answers to the unanswered mysteries that arose in the storyline from the very beginning makes me a little mad. Don't get me wrong, I loved the characters, but I feel cheated. I'm okay with how it ended, just not how they filled in the gaps these last two seasons.

Absolutely. Although i suppose some romantics were compelled to discuss who Kate would end up with etc., it wasn't the characters that drove interest in this show. In the early days, no one was going online to discuss if Jack would resolve his daddy issues, or anything of the sort.

Once again, I agree and disagree. Yeah, anyone who heard the minute of dialogue between Jack and his father should have realized what happened on the island was real.

Exactly. to me, that's all there is to it, so when you say below:

However, that whole conversation was very unLost like and anti-climatic. Are they really going to give us the answer for the whole mysterious flash-sideways after leading us to believe it was something else in one straight forward 30 second conversation? Looking back now I see there were numerous clues to this, but really? Really?

I didn't find it to be un-Lost-Like or anti-climactic at all. In fact, I think it was very consistent in tone to some of "Christian"'s other appearances (to Locke in the Cabin with Claire, or to Locke when he turned the wheel). But more to the point, even if you find it to be un-Lost-like, why is that an excuse for disregarding it? This dialogue clearly spelled out what was going on re: "purgatory" etc. but people act as if it was never said or act as if he said something different. The island was not purgatory, period.

Name one other big surprise or mystery that was answered or dispelled in Lost that was resolved in such an anti-climatic way? The reason so many people are confused about it is the way the writers presented it.

For starters, the whispers were resolved much more anti-climatically way, IMHO. I don't understand why people are confused by the way it was presented. I don't see how it could possibly be made any clearer. I mean, Jack basically asked Christian "What's going on" and Christian responded "This, this, and this is what's going on". How much clearer could it be?

Anyways, that's my rant. Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate the finale like a lot of people, but I did not love it either. It is more of Season 6 as a whole just frustrating me. For example. the Others at the temple. Who cares about them? I sure did not care about characters introduced this late into the series that had no real character development themselves or really exist to further the plot that much. What plot development that was accomplished during the episodes centered around the temple could have been done in many different ways without wasting so much of our much-awaited last season.

Agree about the Others and the Temple, that was somewhat lame the way they (didn't) resolve it

All valid points. I guess I just got past the point of demanding or wanting answers to some of this. The Flash sideways was almost completely detached from the rest of the story, until the finale. Really, it was a season long red herring to have us trying to figure out what the heck happened when Jughead went off. If they had introduced it in the finale it would have almost been just as effective at conveying its ultimate purpose - only the Alt. characters awakenings wouldn't have been as impactful or as emotional as they were having built them up for the whole season.

From a production standpoint, I have to think that perhaps its cheaper to go and film in urban settings instead of on the beach or in the middle of the jungle. Hence, from a financial standpoint, Lost may have been harder to pull off without 15 minutes or so of flashback/forwards/sideways footage in most of the episodes. Hence season 6 had to have a flash-something or other, one way or the other.

Re the question of Eloise, you can look for another recent post of mine. Its not completely clear cut, but I think enough was shown in the show for us to extrapolate that Eloise was a woman who, in 1977, came into possession of her son Daniel's journal, which had a plethora of information both about the island, physics and time travel equations, Desmond Hume, and certain aspects of the future up until 2004 when Faraday arrived at the island. That is how she knew so much, and why, after Desmond was shot by Ben in 2007, for the first time in a long time she did not know what was going to happen next (paraphrasing her).

I'd say why some were there and some weren't: combination of being ready for it, or for being important in the lives of everyone else there.

As for why Aaron was a baby or other people appeared at a certain age in the church - not sure there's a good answer to this. One idea would be that, as Christian said, the Losties created that world, and the way they created it was roughly consistent with the state of things at the time shortly after flight 815. Hence Christian is old, Jack is in his 40's, Kate's in her 30's, and Aaron is a baby, etc. Another idea - since the whole idea is that these people were all important in one another's lives, their age in this "purgatory" represents the time in their lives when they knew each other and were important to one-another.

Of course, I think the real reason is that it wouldn't really be practical to go out and find an adult Aaron or a geriatric Shanon or an infant Kate etc. It wouldn't hit home with the audience if they didn't just use the actors that played these characters, and without slapping enough makup on them so that they all looked in their 80's or their teens.